The Hallowed Isle Book Two (18 page)

“Well, maybe it is a bit chilly, but I refuse to stay cooped up here. You can wear a cloak of mine—”

And so they fared out, wrapped alike in royal crimson and very much of a height. From a distance, the only difference between them would be his fair hair against Artor's brown. But Artor was lord of most of Britannia, and Oesc was, despite all the marks of consideration, his prisoner.

A brisk wind was blowing up the Tamesis, ruffling the ripples into little wavelets as it scoured the smoke of Londinium's hearthfires from the sky. They had both been right, thought Oesc, wrapping the crimson mantle more securely. It was cold, and it was a beautiful day. With the air so clear, he felt he ought to be able to see downriver all the way to the sea. A sudden memory came to him of sunlight on the water of the estuary below Durobrivae, and he turned swiftly away.

“Was there no one else to keep you company, or did you have something to say to me?” He realized too late how ungracious that had sounded and tried to soften it with a smile.

Artor, who had been gazing southward at the scattering of farms and fields and the distant blue line of the downs, turned back to him, frowning. Oesc felt himself being assessed and examined; it was a look he had learned to recognize when they were on campaign. Then the king released his gaze with a little smile. But there was still trouble in his eyes.

“What is it, my lord?”

“A messenger has come from Cantium. Your grandfather is dead.”

Oesc felt a muscle jump in his cheek, but he kept his gaze steady. “He was very old. Many people think he died years ago.”
When the Britons captured me. . . .

Artor cleared his throat. “The message is from your witenagemot, a formal request from the elders of your people to send you back to them to be their king.”

Oesc felt all the blood leave his face and then flood back again. For a moment, staying on his feet took all his strength of will. Then he felt Artor's hand on his arm and his vision cleared.

“And what . . .” he swallowed and tried again, “what was your reply?”

“I have not yet given it. I have to ask you—do you want to go?”

Oesc stared at him. “I have a
choice?”

“I cannot hold prisoner a man who has guarded my back and fought at my side,” said Artor impatiently. “I blame myself now for keeping you by me. It was selfishness on my part. I should have given you this choice a year ago. I suppose it's time to let Cunorix go as well.”

Thoughts and emotions suppressed so long Oesc had forgotten them battered against his awareness. Seeing his trouble, Artor went on—

“Oesc, you have earned a place among my Companions. You would be accepted. My own grandfather was a German in the service of Rome. As a man I would ask you to stay—there are many who fight for me because it is their duty, but few who do so because, if I dare assume so much, they are my friends.”

There was a short silence. Oesc watched a gull soar towards the sun, then swoop earthward once more. He cleared his throat.

“And what do you ask . . . as a king?”

“If you stay with me, someone else will seize power in Cantium. I cannot afford to have an active enemy on my doorstep. As a king, I want a man in Durovernum who will at worst be neutral, and at best, perhaps, a friend.” It was his turn, now to look away.

Gazing at that bent head, Oesc understood two things. The first was that what he felt for Artor was a love which he could never give to any other overlord, and the second was that he had to go home.

“Your grandfather was a Germanic Roman officer. Mine was the man who killed him, as your father killed mine,” he said painfully. “If I were not who I am, I would serve you my life long. But if I were not Hengest's grandchild I would not be here at all. And there is another thing. Before ever I saw you I had made my dedication to the goddess who rules the land of Cantuware. I must go back to be her king.”

“The Lady . . .” Artor turned back to him, his eyes clouded by memory. “I understand. I will miss you—” He reached out to grip Oesc's hand. “Because of you, even those Saxons whom I must fight will never be a faceless enemy, and to those who live in the lands I hold I will be a fair and honest lord.”

Oesc nodded. Surely it was the wind that was making his eyes sting with tears.

“And one more thing, in thanks for the service you have done me. I will have a treaty drawn up between us, confirming you in the rights granted to Hengest by the Vor-Tigernus. It has been three generations since Cantium became Cantuware—even if we were to take it back tomorrow, the Britons who used to live there are scattered and gone. To you and your heirs I grant it, Oesc; it is Saxon soil.”

The night of Oesc's farewell feast Artor got drunk for the first time since the rite to Lugus at Dun Eidyn. At least Betiver believed that the king had been drunk that night, certainly everyone else had been, and he did remember that Artor had been as red-eyed and dazed the next morning as the rest of them.

The feast was formal, the menu heavy on the Roman side, with spiced beets and wild spring greens dressed with oils, boiled grains with sauces, and chickens delicately seasoned as well as a suckling pig stewed in wine. For certain Oesc was not going to get a meal like this in his Saxon hut, thought Betiver, trying to decide whether he had room for just one more morsel of elderberry pie. But though his mouth still watered, his belly had another opinion, and he had let his belt out one notch already. With a sigh he pushed his plate away.

“Are you not wanting that?” Gualchmai reached across the table and scraped the remains from Betiver's plate to his own. Gualchmai had grown at least a foot since coming south with Artor, and was always hungry. He was going to be a big man.

Servants cleared the plates away and began to serve more wine. Oesc proposed a toast to the king; the king responded in kind, his cropped brown hair rumpled and his eyes very bright. Cai toasted the armies of Brittania; Artor drank to their commanders. It should have been Cataur, but the Dumnnonian, who had barely tolerated Oesc's presence with the army, had refused to attend. No one missed him. Indeed, by this time everyone was beginning to feel quite mellow, though Oesc looked depressed, except when he was forcing a smile.

The gifts that Artor was sending with his former hostage were brought in. Oesc went red and pale again as he accepted them. There was a lorica hamata of mail with punched and riveted rings and an officer's helmet with decorations in gold. But except for their quality, they would not make him stand out at home—half the Saxon fighting force was outfitted in looted Roman gear. Betiver did wonder, though, where Artor expected the Saxon to wear them. Perhaps he intended to raise auxiliaries from Cantium when the Picts made trouble again.

There were tunics of Byzantine silk, an officer's belt with gold fittings, a pair of arm rings, and a fine woolen cloak of deep blue that was the mate of Artor's crimson, with a great round brooch of gold. There was a table service of figured red ceramic ware and a silver ewer with goblets. Taken together with Oesc's share of the loot from the Pictish campaign, it was an impressive dowry to be taking home to Cantium.

Then the gifts were carried away again and the king called for more wine. Artor stood up and began to make a speech about how brave they had all been during the Pictish war. Betiver felt his eyes closing and surrendered to a dream in which he was dancing around the festival fire with a girl whose body he could still picture in arousing detail, though he had never learned her name.

He came abruptly awake again to find Gualchmai poking him.

“There's a man come from home to bring me messages, and he's asking for you as well. He has a young woman with him who says she's brought your child. . . .”

He had not spoken softly, and Betiver's progress towards the door was followed by a chorus of advice and comment that made him redden, though he pretended not to hear.

He went, determined to see the girl off in short order. There was a widow in the city whom he visited sometimes, but he knew that she was not with child. He was not like Gualchmai, who had progressed from kitchen maids to married ladies and was reputed to have one bastard already, though he was barely sixteen.

He was starting to question the messenger, a ginger-haired fellow wrapped in the yellowish checkered stuff Leudonus' people wore, when he heard a cry. A red-headed woman came forward into the light with a yearling child in her arms, and it was the girl he had just seen in his dream.

For a long moment Betiver stared at her. “What is your name?”

“Roud—” She took a deep breath. “Do you know me, then? I was fearing you might not remember after all.”

“I remember.”

“Well, that's a start—” Her words tumbled out as if she were afraid that she might not have the courage to say them all. “I know you are great among the princes of the south, and I don't ask you to marry me. But the boy deserves better than I can give him, out in the hills. There was no other man for a moon before or after the festival, my lord, so I am certain he's yours. If you will swear to do right by him, I'll trouble you no more.”

Betiver lifted the blanket and saw a frowning, pug-nosed face topped by a tangle of dark hair that looked so much like his own father's that he blinked in surprise.
A boy child . . . I have a son. . . .

“A child needs his mother,” he said softly. “It would be better if you stayed.”

Roud stared at him, then her eyes filled with tears. “We'll be no trouble to you, I promise—”

“Nay—you had the trouble of bearing him. If I had known of this, I would have provided for you before. Tonight you may sleep in my rooms here, and tomorrow we'll see about finding a house for you in the town.”

By the time Betiver had settled Roud and the boy in his own bed and returned to the feasting hall, everyone had gone but Cai and young Gualchmai, who was pouring more wine for the king.

“You never knew you were planting a field, but it seems you got a fine crop all the same!” commented Gualchmai with rude good humor.

“I remember the girl,” said Betiver, “and I'm satisfied that the boy is mine.”

“You have a son?” asked Artor, his eyes dark with the wine.

“It would seem so. He wrinkles his forehead just the way my father does when he's annoyed. My memory of the festival in Dun Eidyn is somewhat confused, but I would guess mine was not the only seed to sprout from that sowing.”

“Ah, indeed,” said Gualchmai, “it was generous of you to replace the men we lost on that campaign.”

“You are an unregenerate heathen!” exclaimed Cai.

“Maybe so, but in the north, festival babes are held to be a blessing from the gods.”

“A man needs to know that his son is his own,” Cai replied.

“Then get married and breed them!” exclaimed Gualchmai. “When will you be taking a wife, uncle? I'm heir to my father's lands already—I've no need for yours!”

His mother would be irritated to hear him say it, thought Betiver. By all accounts Morgause was ambitious for her sons. She had a fifth boy now to follow the others, he had heard.

Artor shook his head. “Kings don't make marriages, they make alliances. So long as I'm unmarried, any man of good blood can hope to make his daughter queen.”

“I suppose that Oesc will settle down now and raise a troop of flaxen-haired brats,” said Betiver.

“I suppose he will—” Artor sighed. Clearly the wine was wearing off. The sadness had returned to his eyes.

“Are you so sorry to lose him?” asked Cai gruffly. “Oesc is a good fellow, for all his moody ways, and I suppose we'll miss him. But
we're
still here!”

“That's true—” Artor reached out to grip their hands. “But I value each one of you in a different way. I'm afraid that when I see Oesc again he'll be a stranger, and then he might as well be dead to me—”

Betiver felt the king's hand strong and warm in his own, but in spirit Artor was far away. He tightened his grip, trying to draw him back again.
My dear lord, are we not enough for you?

Oesc rode across the bridge into Durovernum on a fine spring evening just before Ostara, wearing a British tunic and riding a fine British horse that Artor had given him, and still thinking, despite a week of journeying with his Saxon escort, in the British tongue. The remains of the theatre still stood like a monument in the center of the walled town, but the walls themselves seemed lower, and several of the other Roman buildings he remembered had been scavenged for building stone. The long Saxon houses huddled under their weight of thatching like sheep in fleece, and everything he looked on seemed small, and poor, and old.

As they reined in before the hall, a figure appeared in the doorway, shading his eyes with his hand against the westering light. He shouted something, and in another moment Hæthwæge appeared, Hengest's silver-mounted meadhorn in her hands. There was more silver in her hair than he remembered, but otherwise she hadn't changed.

“Oesc son of Octha, waes hal—be welcome to your hall!” She came down the steps, and he took the horn. The mead was yeasty and dry, with an aftertaste of sweetness and fire. The taste of it brought a sudden flood of memories. He drank again, dizzied by the conflict of old knowledge and new, uncertain for a moment who he was or where.

“Thank you . . .” he mumbled, clinging to the formalities. A thrall came up to take the horse's head and he swung a leg across the high front of the saddle and slid to the ground. His escort were dismounting behind him. More thralls led their horses away. A horn blew and he heard people shouting.

For so long, he thought, he had dreamed of this moment, longed for it. And now, it seemed the capacity to respond was dead in him.
What am I doing here? How can I be a king to these people? Would Artor take me back again?